I realize that, BUT I would expect the toolbar to receive the focus so that one could then use the arrow key to cycle over the toolbar buttons.

I suppose the "real" question should have been "How can I access the toolbar buttons using the keyboard rather than the mouse?"

1) I always use action lists and attach an action to each tool button that way the action shortcut can be used directly.2) are the caption of the toolbar visible? if yes then isn't the hot key working on toolbars? truly asking, I haven't tested or used that feature.

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Good judgement is the result of experience … Experience is the result of bad judgement.

I just tested this on my Delphi installation (old one d3) and it works there... The TAB system does go to the Toolbarbut not with Lazarus... The Toolbar is a TWincontrol and of course it does have the TABStop property etc, which does not work apparently...

I used the OnEnter as the test which gets triggered when control receives focus.., works fine with my Delphi 3.

Most likely will work with my D7 if I had it handy...

I think this should be reported.

P.S.

Looks like it has been disabled by design.. !?

The closes class is simply returning FALSE on CanFocus, basically not allowing the TWinControl to focus.

I can implement the keyboard events at runtime, and change the image indexes of the buttons to reflect position..

I have done this with Delphi apps but it would nice for the control to trigger its OnEnter and OnExit, otherwise why have theTabstop properites related events ?

P.s. It appears the TtoolButton has an OnPaint event published, something my old D3 didn't have so I don't know when thiscame about?, but this also means one can draw their buttons to reflect indication etc, like a dotted box and so on.. I suppose one could parent the Toobar with a TPanel to get the effects needed...

Toolbar (historically) was added in addition to application's menu: direct way for the user to access an application's commands by mouse. That is, the use of the keyboard is not expected. But of course, everything can be realized.